


You're Beautiful

by icyowl97



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemons, Henry dies, Henry's first death, death mention
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-20 22:09:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3667026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icyowl97/pseuds/icyowl97
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry has a rough time with his aquatic daemon, though modern technology has made it easier for him to travel. But his daemon hadn't always been in the form she was now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Having an aquatic daemon did cause a lot of problems. It limited how you could travel, where you could move too, and even what jobs you worked. And, worst of all, aquatic daemons were quite rare, and tended to draw attention, and attention was one thing that Henry Morgan most certainly didn't want. 

His daemon, Amara, hadn't always been an aquatic daemon. When she had first settled, she had been a kingfisher, and he had been very proud of that. Men in the Morgan family had a long history of settling as birds, and while he didn't like to admit it, he had been afraid of being the first one to break that line.

But after he found out that his father had gotten into the slave trade, and his entire life had unraveled. Part of why he had been so proud to settle as a bird was because his father had told him that the reason the Morgan's settled as birds was because they found the best ways around problems. So when he saw his father trying to explain why they had gone into the slave trade he found himself losing his pride in Amara's form.

Now, he would never be ashamed of Amara. Of the two of them, he was quite sure that she was the stronger, and without her strength, he wasn't quite sure that he could have recovered from his father's death. But after he found himself staring at his father's pocket watch for the thousands time, Amara had done something he hadn't expected. She bit him on his ear.

"Ow!" He exclaimed, snapping the pocket watch shut to look at her crossly. "What on God's earth was that for?"

"You're wallowing. Again." She fluttered her wings a bit. "Henry, I know you miss him, and I know that you're confused about how to feel given recent events, but I can't let you wallow. I barely pulled you out when your mother died, and the longer you wallow, the worse you get."

"I'm not wallowing, Mara." Henry said. "I'm just thinking."

"Yeah, well thinking too much is a huge problem, Henry, probably your greatest problem. This isn't healthy, so I'm going to tell you what we're going to do. We're going to move to America."

"America?" Henry echoed. "No we shan't. Our practice is here, and our home is here." 

"Yes, and so are all our memories. This isn't this first time we've discussed this, Henry. We've been thinking about this for quite a while, but I think that it's time for us to do it. We'll leave in a few months, settle in, and then send for Nora and Ridwick to come."

"But Mara," Henry started, and Amara cut him off.

"We both know that we need to do this. After finding out what Father did behind out back, we desperately need a new start, and you know it as well as I do. So don't bother trying to fight me on this."

And Henry had known that she was right. So he'd talk to Nora and found, to his surprise, that she agreed, and so just a short time later he found himself waving goodbye to his wife as he set out for a new life. 

Then, he had been shot, had watched his beloved Amara fading into dust as he was flung into the sea. And then he had awoken, in the ocean, without a ship in sight and, for the first time in his life, completely alone. 

That was the worst part of every death, that moment when he was completely alone, and unsure as to where Amara was. But no time was as bad as the first time, when he had awaken to be completely alone, without his daemon in sight, without even knowing what was going on.

For a few minutes Henry had flailed, tears rolling down his face as he scream her name at the top of his lungs into the empty sky. "Mara!?! Mara!!? AMARA!? WHERE ARE YOU?!"

He had screamed himself horse before he finally felt it, the touch at his arm that signaled her presence and was slightly soothed. But then this touch, while he felt it was her, was smoother than her claws and he began to panic again until he heard her voice.

"Henry!" She said, and it was the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard in his entire life. "Henry, I was so scared, and I.. I can't fly anymore!"

Her voice was coming from water level, and he reached out, pulling her out of the water. She wasn't a bird anymore, she was an octopus, and each of her tentacles gripped tightly to his hand, as though fearful that he would disappear. 

"What am I?" She whispered, her voice quivering with fear, and then suddenly the tears flowing from Henry's eyes weren't from fear, but rather from joy.

"You're beautiful." He whispered.


	2. Rivers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Henry has to explain why he was found naked in the river. This time, though, science has his back, as does Amara.

"So basically what I'm hearing here is that your daemon-" Reese looked down at the paper, "-Amara, made you go swimming, NAKED, in the river? Do I have that correct?"

"Well, in it's simplest element you are correct, but that's a rather crude way of putting it. You see, all daemon's experience a minor pull to their natural element. Like I'm sure you and Bertold rather enjoy crisp morning with snow." Henry gestured to Reese's daemon, a Canadian snow lynx that lounged on the floor next to the desk, eyeing Amara's tank that resting at Henry's feet. "In the case of Amara and myself, I'm afraid the draw is a bit more... Pulling."

He slipped his hand through one of the straps of the portable tank, setting it up on the desk so Reese could see Amara. "Amara settled as a-"

"Yes, I know that doctor." Reese said, waving her hand. "But why do you two end up in the middle of the river, you naked, and her without a tank? How do you even get there?"

"I wish I knew." Henry lied. "However I do notice in the cases of those incidents, I tend to also lose one of Amara's portable tanks. Which is truly a shame, because they aren't cheap. But I would assume that when sleepwalking there, the tank just drifts to the bottom."

"And the sleepwalking..." Reese looked so done with this conversation that Henry found himself relaxing. This would be over soon.

"Well I've always been a sleepwalker, even before Mara settled. It is a medical condition and despite seeing several specialist, there is no treatment. But after Amara settled as an octopus, which is of course a sea dwelling animal, I would find myself waking up in water. Ponds. Pools. Rivers. Once on vacation I even woke up in the ocean, which was quite alarming!" Amara placed a tentacle on the glass, her suction cups widening, and Henry popped open the top.

Amara dragged herself halfway out of the tank, water splashing onto the desk and wetting the papers. "What Henry is trying to say is that it is dreadfully inconvenient and we don't really like it anymore than you do."

Reese pursed her lips and nodded, opening her desk drawer to find some napkins to clean up the mess. "And the naked part?"

"I sleep naked." Henry said, and Amara slipped back into her tank.

And that was it. Reese was done. Her best ME gets dragged into her office for repeated public indecency charges? She can manage. She hears his daemon talk for the first time, without moving her mouth? Off setting, but she can deal. But she just doesn't want to think about this. "You're dismissed." She said, waving to the door.

"Thank you." Henry said, swinging Amara's tank onto his back and walking out. 

"And Henry?" She called out after him once he got to the door. "Please invest in some pajamas." 

He smiled. "I'll see what I can do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He doesn't invest in PJs. He invests in printer paper and prints out an article on the medical benefits of sleeping naked and leaves it on her desk. She is so done with this.
> 
> One thing I wanted to touch on here that I mentioned in the story but it might not have been clear. Octopuses are very alien looking creatures (though Amara, who is a coconut octopus, is quite cute!) and their mouth is a beak on the bottom of their stomach. Amara is very friendly, but watching her talk would be very unsettling because you wouldn't really see her mouth move.
> 
> Which is, of course, part of the reason why she spoke. Just as Henry is shown using TMI as a weapon in the show ("I sleep in the nude") he also uses Amara unusual and offsetting form as a weapon by letting her talk. You have to hand it to Reese though. She has nerves of steel
> 
> Henry's portable tank for Amara looks like a glass backpack.


	3. Fun Details For Patient Fans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is just a list of daemons and little fun facts about them. It's been a while since I updated, it will be a while more, but yes. This will eventually be a series of short stories retelling the show, and maybe some bonus flashbacks to how Henry convinetly met Lyra Silvertounge. This is one of my favorite projects I'm working on.

For anyone who is following “You’re Beautiful” my Forever fic, I’m terribly sorry I haven’t updated in forever. Hahaha, see what I did there? Anyways, I haven’t been feeling well, so I’ll probably update it soon, but as an apology for waiting so long, here’s a list of everyone’s daemons.

Dr. Henry Morgan has Amara, who is a coconut octopus, though her original form was a kingfisher. She doesn’t change after every death, just after the first one. Henry isn’t quite sure how it ties in, but suspects her aquatic form has something to do with the significance of water to his new life.

Lucas has a rat named Priscilla, which gets him teased a lot, but as be likes to remind everyone, rats are very intelligent animals, clever and fast. They are also, to Henry’s horror, social creatures that thrive off companionship and conversation.

Hanson has an Ethiopian wolf named Astrophel. Like the rat, the Ethiopian wolf is a social creature, that cares deeply for its young. They construct dens but only the pups sleep in them. Most people mistake Astrophel for a coyote, or a fox. Hanson did too for a while, but now he tends to correct people when they get it wrong. He’s so used to correcting people that when Henry actually named her species correctly, he started off on a speech.

Jo’s daemon is named Ansgar, and he is an Irish wolf hound. Ansgar settled when Jo was 12, which was quite young, and due to the massive size of her daemon, Jo hasn’t been teased since. Ansgar is tall even for an Irish wolf hound, and has been very helpful in chains criminals and getting confessions. He is also the perfect size for her to draw comfort from him by wrapping her hands in his fur without having to bend over, something she needed a lot when he husband died.

Reese has Bertold, a Canadian Snow Lynx. People used to think that was odd, as cat daemons are rare in the police force, but Reese and Bertold quickly proved their worth, rising rapidly through the ranks.

Iona Payne, or Molly, has a peach-throat monitor named Dayakar. Some people are put on edge by him, which is understandable as he’s 4 feet long. But in her business, she finds that the people get over him fast. Dayakar is a very gentle soul, though he is skittish.

Abe has a tamarin named Evelina. Henry was very suprised when she settled because Abraham had always favored bird forms, like his mother, but after a few months it seemed to impossible for him to have settled as anything else.

Abigail is a rare case with a same gender daemon named Kalila. Kalila is a raven. Ravens are social animals with a strong sense of family. When the young leave the nest, they will often come back to visit there parents.

**Author's Note:**

> Amara was originally settled as a Common Kingfisher, but after his first death, she changed to become a Coconut Octopus.  
> This is still sort of a rough draft, so I'll probably go back and edit it later, but I kept pushing it off, and I knew if I didn't publish it now, I never would. This was supposed to have been published around Christmastime.  
> I hope that I'll get around to writing more of these, because I really do want to do a modern crossover with Forever and His Dark Materials, so if you'd be interested in that, please comment.


End file.
